Slavery as a Cultural Legacy: Abdulrazzak Gurnah’s Paradise as a Case Study

Abdulrazak Gurnah is a Tanzanian-born British novelist who won the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in 1948 in Zanzibar, Tanzania (then the Sultanate of Zanzibar). He moved to the UK as a refugee in the 1960s after the Zanzibar Revolution. The vulnerability of slavery has been discussed by many writers. This paper is going to investigate slavery in Gurnah’s novel Paradise1994, particularly in the lives of the protagonist, Yusuf. This paper aims to follow the journey of Yusuf, a young man who is forced into servitude after his father pawns him. Through Yusuf’s experiences, Gurnah delves into how slavery has become a cultural legacy, shaping identities, relationships, and aspects of society. The paper will identify how the characters’ experiences are shaped by their ancestors’ history of slavery. It will also explore how the novel depicts the social, economic, and psychological impacts of slavery on the characters and their communities especially the loss of agency which can lead to feelings of powerlessness and hopelessness. The paper also shows Social Marginalization as a stigma associated with slavery. Individuals are treated differently based on their ancestry. Yusuf’s experiences illustrate how racial and social hierarchies can be perpetuated through cultural legacies.